What the Experts Say Productivity experts counsel against such extreme measures. Email is certainly a threat to efficiency, says David Allen, a consultant and the author of Getting Things Done and Making It All Work, but he maintains that it’s also an essential work tool. “I’ve had email since 1983. I couldn’t live the life I live without it,” he says. Bob Pozen, a senior lecturer of business administration at Harvard Business School and author of “Extreme Productivity” agrees. Even if you wanted to use it less, he says, it’s nearly impossible to get people by phone or in person these days. Both Pozen and Allen believe that sweeping rules like the ones Atos and VW are trying are not necessary. You can regain control over your email, and reduce its insidious effects on your productivity, by looking at the root causes of the problem and then following a few straightforward rules.

Recognize it’s not really about email According to Allen, email overload is only a symptom of a larger issue: a lack of clear and effective protocols. If your organization has ambiguous decision-making processes and people don’t get what they need from their colleagues, they’ll flood the system with email and meeting requests. People then get mired down in their backlog, which leads to even more email and meeting requests from frustrated co-workers trying to follow up.

Allen had one client who had an average backlog of 3,000 – 4,000 emails. When he finally cleared and stayed on top of his inbox, both his email traffic and his meeting load went down. His colleagues got the direction and input they needed so they didn’t need to hound him. “Email handled well reduces meetings. And meetings handled well reduces emails,” Allen says. Taking the time to reply now can save you twice the time in the future.

Control your flow Another way to reduce the time you spend on email is to turn off the spigot of incoming messages. There are obvious practices that help, such as unsubscribing to e-newsletters or turning off notifications from Facebook or Twitter. But you may also want to reconsider whether your colleagues or direct reports are copying you on too many “for your information” emails. If so, simply explain that you only need to be updated at certain times or when a final decision is made.

Clear out your inbox and keep it clean No matter how much you do the above, it’s still possible you’ll have a clogged inbox. You’ve probably read much of the advice about managing email, but some of it bears repeating. Start by emptying out your inbox. If you have thousands of messages in your main folder, create a new folder called “Old Inbox” and put the messages in there. You still have access to them if need be but you will be able to handle incoming messages more easily without the clutter staring back at you.

Once you’ve gotten to zero messages (or at least close to it), commit to sorting through new email right away. Use the following three steps:

Delete. Glance over your inbox and delete any messages you don’t need to read or keep: calendar invites, advertisements, etc. “You ought to be able to discard 80% of them just by looking at the title,” says Pozen.

Respond. If you can reply to a message in a few minutes or less, go ahead and do that. “If you put it off, you lose time by trying to find it, or remembering what you wanted to say,” says Pozen.

File. For the rest of your messages, decide where they should go. Put them into folders or use flags or labels to indicate how high priority they are and when you need to respond by.

Choose a handful of times during the day when you will review your inbox. If you do it every five minutes, you’ll end up spending your whole day on email. But don’t try to go cold turkey either. Checking your email only once or twice a day is impractical. “Most people who send an email are looking for a response quickly,” says Pozen.

Be careful with rules According to both Allen and Pozen, sweeping policies that effect a broad population of workers and dictate how and when they check email are not realistic, nor likely to be effective. “Why hamstring your employees with silly rules?,” says Allen. Plus policies like these don’t always stick. “It’s hard to come up with mechanical rules that work for everyone,” says Pozen.

That doesn’t mean all rules are bad however. You can develop guidelines for yourself and those you interact with. Encourage others to limit emails to only those who have an action item. Have open discussions about how you will communicate about specific topics. “Try to reach agreement with the group on what’s reasonable to send and receive,” says Pozen.

Take an occasional break Since email is such a constant presence in our lives, it can be rejuvenating to disconnect from all things digital once in a while. Some do this whenever they go on vacation. Others take a deliberate “email sabbatical.” “It’s always a good idea to untangle yourself from intense interactive engagements every once in a while just to prove you’re not hopelessly addicted and get some fresh air,” says Allen. Of course, this strategy isn’t for everyone: “If you’re constantly distracted by what you might be missing, you’re way better off spending as much time as you need to handle it,” says Allen.

Principles to Remember:

Do:

Respond quickly and clearly to those who need your attention or input — this will reduce the amount of email you receive

When you can’t reply immediately, file the emails for action later

Take an email sabbatical on occasion to give yourself a break

Don’t:

Assume that email is the real problem — a clogged inbox might mean you haven’t established clear priorities

Send one-word emails and reply to everyone on a thread — the more email you send the more you will receive

Think a company-wide policy will solve your email problems — focus on what you can control: your own behavior

Case Study #1: Develop a system and stick to it Ana Dutra, the CEO of Korn/Ferry International, is known for responding to every email she receives within 24 hours, regardless of who it comes from. But she doesn’t feel like she spends too much time on email. “I have a system that works for me,” she says. It is a process she felt forced to develop when she led the global organization strategy practice at Accenture and received 250 to 300 emails per day. While that number is lower now that she’s at Korn/Ferry (around 120 emails a day, she says), she is still committed to staying on top of her email and keeping her inbox clean. “The more it accumulates, the harder it is to catch up and determine what’s important and what’s not,” she says.

Ana uses a four-step process each time she opens her Blackberry or Outlook inbox. She starts by deleting anything she can: invites, spam, etc. She then sorts by subject so she is only looking at the last message in a conversation. She doesn’t look at the previous trail of email unless she needs to. “The problem may have already been solved,” she points out. She then looks at the messages she was copied on to see if there is something urgent or whether she is just being kept in the loop. The last thing she does is reply to messages that can be handled immediately and files the rest into folders.

For her it’s a matter of respect to reply promptly. “It takes 20-30 seconds to write a quick email explaining when you will get to something,” she says. “So much is resolved and so many decisions are made by email, it is irresponsible not to respond.” She also trains those she works with. “If you want me to read what you write to me, make it short,” she says. She encourages people to label things “Action required” or “No action — FYI only.”

Every time she has down time — in a car, waiting for an appointment — she cleans out her inbox. She doesn’t think of the time she spends managing her email as an encumbrance. In fact it’s the opposite. “It doesn’t feel like a burden at all. It feels great,” she says.

Case Study #2: Stop the source Frank Sopper, the President of OpenBook Learning, a company that provides educational software to U.S. public schools and advises executives on cognitive effectiveness, does not want to be copied on any emails. “I don’t slap anyone’s hand if they do,” he says, “but I may ask, ‘Why are you sending this to me?'” Sopper started to look closely as the emails he was receiving several years back in a previous role. He asked himself: Is there an action item here for me? If not, why am I receiving these?

At OpenBook, he has pushed the people he works with to think carefully about why they are sending an email and who needs to receive it. “We’ve really worked hard in our organization not to copy anyone on an email unless there’s an action item for them,” he says. The goal is not to stifle conversation but to make sure it’s relevant. “Anyone can communicate with me. They send me an email with me in the ‘To’ line.”

Managers at OpenBook don’t feel constrained by the rule. In fact, Sopper says that people seem relieved because they feel trusted to do their job. And he relies on other tools to monitor performance. “I have to trust that we have metrics that measure people’s work without watching their conversations,” he says.

Has the no CC approach significantly reduced his email load? “I don’t know how many emails I receive,” he acknowledges. “I get rid of them, move them into folders. They don’t stack up in my inbox. But I know it’s sharply less than my peers who are running similar sized organizations.”